In book 9, the Trojan success and presence begins to wear
on Agamemnon and the rest of the Achaeans. Agamemnon comes to realize that he
will need Achilles help to fight off the Trojan forces and keep them from
getting to and burning his ships. He sends Phoenix, Ajax, and Odysseus to
Achilles camp with a message of appeasement including numerous gifts and spoils
in the future if Achilles agrees to end his anger and fight for the Greeks
again. Achilles doesn’t accept this offer and uses this simile to describe some
of his thoughts:
"Like
a bird that brings back to her unfledged chicks every morsel
she can find, and has to go without herself, so
it has been with me." Iliad
9.323-324(Hammond Translation)
The tenor in the simile is Achilles who
sacks cities and fights for Agamemnon and little if anything in return. The
vehicle is the mother bird who sacrifices her effort, time, and food for her
chicks without anything in return. Just as the bird suffers and gives
everything for nothing in return, Achilles employs himself on the battlefield
while Agamemnon and the other Kings keep the spoils. Achilles may also be
directly referring to Briseis as the “morsel” he must surrender because like
the chicks, Agamemnon demanded to have Achilles prized woman. The simile reinforces
the reader’s sympathy for Achilles situation and why he does not wish to fight anymore
when all he gets in return is more suffering. This simile is also a
continuation of the nature themed similes that are abundant in the Iliad. This simile in particular is
interesting however because Homer chooses to compare Achilles, a strong, manly
warrior, to a mother bird. While the mother bird is bound to give up everything
to her chicks for no reward or compensation, Achilles now feels he should no
longer do the same for Agamemnon and the other Achaean leaders and thus refuses
to help them fight the Trojans.
1 comment:
Nice job, Nick--a good choice of simile. Notice how the (as you point out, rather surprising) maternal imagery Achilles uses about himself gets picked up in Book 16 when he speaks to Patroclus and compares him to a little girl who comes crying to her mother.
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